Sub-Acute patients can stay in San Francisco, administrators say

In a sharp turnaround, California Pacific Medical Center will keep 28 patients currently at St. Luke’s Hospital who had been told earlier that they would have to leave the hospital by October 31.

The closure deadline for the St. Luke’s facility, which serves medically fragile care with needs like intravenous feeding and ventilator dependency, has been delayed until June 30, 2018, a memo from hospital staff to patients indicates. But patients will be able to remain in San Francisco indefinitely once appropriate facilities are found for them at another California Pacific facility in the city. It’s unclear if that will be the new facility next door or the center’s Davies campus in Duboce Triangle.

“We have decided to provide continued care in San Francisco within the CPMC system to the 28 patients currently at St. Luke’s, should they choose to remain in our care,” the letter, signed by Chief Nurse Executive Scott Ciesielski, reads.

Many of the patients at St. Luke’s have been there for years or even decades. The unit’s full capacity was…READ MORE